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RELMA is using your test name, specimen, and units of measure to find the correct code. You can find more information about how it works in the RELMA manual (https://loinc.org/download/relma-manual/).

The reason there is an appropriate LOINC match for “Leukocytes bld x 1000/ul” and not for “Glucose -124” is because the first one includes information about the specimen and units, as well as the analyte, while the second only includes the analyte.

Regarding the best way to view and consume clinical observables data, that will depend on your local implementation of the Groups and your EHR system. And please keep in mind that the LOINC Groups must be reviewed and validated for your specific use case.

Looking at the Parent Groups should help you decide which ones might be useful for your particular use case because the Parent Group name will tell you whether the individual Groups are related to laboratory, radiology, vital signs, etc.

We were creating Groups based on our clinical experience and feedback we have received from the LOINC Community over time. It is still a work in progress, and we haven’t deliberately excluded any particular types of LOINC codes, such as challenge terms, except maybe from specific existing Group definitions where including the challenge terms did not seem useful for that particular Group.

If there are Groups that you think would be useful, such as a broader vital signs grouping, please submit your ideas through our Groups Community submission portal (https://loinc.org/groups/community/).

You can search by any of the 6 major LOINC Parts (as well as many other fields) in both RELMA and search.loinc.org. So for example, if you are looking for ejection fraction codes, use Component:”Ejection fraction”. This search will return radiology codes for cardiac studies as well as ejection fraction measurements. If you want to restrict by the measurements, add the scale to the search, e.g., Component:”Ejection fraction” Scale:Qn.

If in general you want to exclude all laboratory terms, you can add -Type:1 to all of your searches. The RELMA and online search help both have a lot of information about search strategies, including which fields you can search on and how to include and exclude terms from your search.

I completely agree with you that having the same ID over time is essential, and starting with the December 2017 Group release, the Group IDs (LG numbers) have been stable, so that the LG numbers for a Group in the December release is the same as the LG number for that Group in the new June (2.64) release.

The file you originally looked at (LOINC_2.61_GroupFile_Alpha_1_grouped_with_counts) was not part of our official release package, though it did contain content from our initial alpha release. It was created by our colleagues at NLM and posted by Dan Vreeman in this same thread on July 5, 2017. Because the counts file wasn’t part of our official release, it did not come with the Readme and Release notes, which specifically said that users should expect the contents of the file to change. Given that it was the first release of the Group work, we did not know what feedback we would get or how the structure or contents of the file would change, so we wanted to be able to change any part of it for the next release.

For the December 2017 release, we significantly changed the structure of the Group release artifact (from one CSV to several) in order to decrease data redundancy and make the contents more computable. In the Release notes for that release, we said that starting with that version, the LG numbers would persist.

The version of the file with the counts is not part of our official release package because given its formatting, subtotal functions, and hidden rows, it cannot easily be uploaded into a database or used for data analysis, and similarly, creating the file is a manual effort.

I hope this information helps, and be assured that going forward (starting with December 2017), the LG numbers are stable.

I just did a quick search and also could not find the pulmonary function concepts you mentioned in your post.

Nearly all of our terms are created based on submitted requests, and nobody to date has requested these pulmonary tests.

You are welcome to request new LOINC codes for these concepts. We have detailed instructions on how to submit requests and the information we need as part of the request on our website: https://loinc.org/submissions/new-terms/.

I just did a quick search and also could not find any terms for OncotypeDX in LOINC, and I don’t see any pending requests for these tests either.

Nearly all of our terms are created based on submitted requests, and while I agree with Pam Banning (who replied to your previous post) that the performing laboratory knows the most about the test and ideally would be the one to request the terms, you are also welcome to request new LOINC codes for these tests.

We have detailed instructions on how to submit requests and the information we need as part of the request on our website: https://loinc.org/submissions/new-terms/.

The Group file in the June 2017 LOINC release did not contain any radiology terms, but the December release will likely include some radiology groups, including laterality roll-ups (i.e., left, right, bilateral, unilateral, unspecified). I presented these during the Clinical LOINC meeting in September as potential new groups for feedback, which is where you may have seen them.